Vaslav Nijinsky (Ballet Dancer) - Pics, Videos, Dating, & News Vaslav Nijinsky Male Born Mar 12, 1890 Vaslav Nijinsky was a Russian danseur and choreographer of Polish descent, cited as the greatest male dancer of the early 20th century. He grew to be celebrated for his virtuosity and for the depth and intensity of his characterizations. He could perform en pointe, a rare skill among male dancers at the time and his ability to perform seemingly gravity-defying leaps was also legendary. The choreographer Bronislava Nijinska was his sister.… Read More related links Tiger Lilien Und Andere Leckerbissen Trierischer Volksfreund Google News - Sep 15, 2011 'Oktober kÃ¶nnen sich Ballett-Fans auf eine Hommage an die Tanz-Legende <mark>Vaslav Nijinsky</mark> freuen.

Die Ballett-Compagnie Rossa, sonst am Theater Halle zu Hause, zeichnet den privaten Weg des KÃ¼nstlers zwischen Genie und Wahnsinn nach und wirft einen Blick' Ballet De Londrina Mostra 'a SagraÃ§Ã£o Da Primavera' Odiario.Com Google News - Sep 13, 2011 '&quot;A SagraÃ§Ã£o da Primavera&quot; Ã© o novo trabalho da premiada companhia londrinense e faz uma releitura da clÃ¡ssica coreografia de <mark>Vaslav Nijinsky</mark> para a mÃºsica Stravinsky. O grupo utiliza uma proposta de danÃ§a contemporÃ¢nea usando muito do chÃ£o para contar' The Russians Are Coming! Toda Yonline Google News - Sep 12, 2011 'That same one 200-year-old institution that can casually namedrop legendary figures like Anna Pavlova, <mark>Vaslav Nijinsky</mark>, Rudolf Nureyev, and Mikhail Baryshnikov as having, you know, &quot;worked there&quot;.

But what, my inner, illiterate, practical-minded Sancho' Teatro Municipal De SÃ£o Paulo Faz 100 Anos Este MÃªs, Com ProgramaÃ§Ã£o Especial Pernambuco.Com Google News - Sep 11, 2011 'Em seu palco jÃ¡ se apresentaram artistas como Maria Callas, Enrico Caruso, Arturo Toscanini, Claudio Arau, Arthur Rubinstein, Ana Pawlova, <mark>Vaslav Nijinsky</mark>, Isadora Duncan, Rudolf Nureyev, Margot Fonteyn, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Duke Ellington e Ella' Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Vaslav Nijinsky. CHILDHOOD 1889 Birth Vaslav Nijinsky was born in 1889 or 1890 in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), as WacÅaw NiÅ¼yÅski, to ethnic Polish parents, touring dancers Tomasz NiÅ¼yÅski (b. 7 March 1862) and Eleonora Bereda (b.

28 December 1856). … Read More Nijinsky was christened in Warsaw. He identified himself as Polish although he grew up in the interior of Russia with his parents and he had difficulty speaking Polish.<br /><br /> Eleanora, along with her two brothers and two sisters, was orphaned while still a child. She started to earn a living as an extra in Warsaw's Grand Theatre Ballet (Polish: Teatr Wielki), becoming a full member of the company at age thirteen. In 1868 her talent was spotted and she moved to Kiev as a solo dancer. Tomasz NiÅ¼yÅski also attended the Wielki Theatre school, becoming a soloist there. At age 18 he accepted a soloist contract with the Odessa Theatre. The two met, married in May 1884 and settled into a career with the traveling Setov opera company. Tomasz was premier danseur, and Eleanora a soloist. Eleanora continued to tour and dance while having three children, sons Stanislav Fomitch (b.

29 December 1886 in Tiflis) and Vaslav; and daughter Bronislava Fominitchna ('Bronia', b. 8 January 1891 in Minsk). She suffered from depression, which may have been a genetic vulnerability shared in a different form by her son Vaslav. Both boys received training from their father and appeared in an amateur production of Hopak in Odessa in 1894. Read Less TEENAGE 1900 - 1901 2 More Events 1900 11 Years Old In 1900, Nijinsky joined the Imperial Ballet School, where he initially studied dance under Sergei Legat and his brother Nicholas. … Read More He studied mime under Pavel Gerdt; all three men were principal dancers at the Imperial Russian Ballet. At the end of the one year probationary period, his teachers agreed upon Nijinsky's exceptional dancing ability and he was confirmed as a boarder at the school. He appeared in supporting parts in classical ballets such as Faust, as a mouse in The Nutcracker, a page in Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake, and won the Didelot scholarship.

During his first year, his academic studies had covered work he had already done, so his relatively poor results had not been so much noted. He did well in subjects which interested him, but not otherwise.<br /><br /> In 1902 he was warned that only the excellence of his dancing had prevented his expulsion from the school for poor results. This laxity was compounded through his school years by Nijinsky's frequently being chosen as an extra in various productions, forcing him to be away from classrooms for rehearsals and to spend nights at performances. He was teased for being Polish, and nicknamed "Japonczek" for his faintly Japanese looks at a time Russia was at war with Japan. Some classmates were envious and resented his outstanding dancing ability. Read Less 1901 12 Years Old In 1901 one of the class deliberately caused him to fall, leading to his suffering a concussion and being in a coma for four days. 1902 13 Years Old Mikhail Oboukhov became his teacher in 1902, and awarded him the highest grade he had ever given to a student.

… Read More He was given student parts in command performances in front of the Czar of Paquita, The Nutcracker and The Little Horse. In music he studied piano, flute, balalaika and accordion, receiving good marks. He had a good ability to hear and play music on the piano, though his sight reading was relatively poor. Read Less 1903 14 Years Old Against this, his behaviour was sometimes boisterous and wild, resulting in his expulsion from the school in 1903 for an incident involving students' shooting at the hats of passers-by with catapults while being driven to the Mariinsky Theatre in carriages. … Read More He was readmitted to the school as a non-resident after a sound beating and restored to his previous position after a month's probation. Read Less 1904 15 Years Old In 1904, at the age of 14, Nijinsky was selected by the great choreographer Marius Petipa to dance a principal role in what proved to be the choreographer's last ballet, La Romance d'un Bouton de rose et d'un Papillon.

… Read More The work was never performed due to the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War. Read Less Show Less On Sunday, 9 January 1905, Nijinsky was caught in the Bloody Sunday massacre in St Petersburg, where a group of petitioners led by Father Grapon attempted to present their petition to the Czar. … Read More Soldiers fired upon the crowd, leading to an estimated 1000 casualties. Nijinsky was caught in the crowd on Nevsky Prospect and propelled toward the Winter Palace. Cossacks charged the crowd, leaving him with a head wound. The following day, he returned to the scene with a friend whose sister was missing. She was never found. Nijinsky became calmer and more serious as he grew older, but continued to make few friends, which continued through his life. His reserve and apparent dullness made him unappealing to others except when he danced. Read Less The 1905 annual student show included a pas de deux from The Persian Market, danced by Nijinsky and Sofia Fedorova.

… Read More Oboukhov amended the dance to show off Nijinsky's abilities, drawing gasps and then spontaneous applause in the middle of the performance with his first jump. Read Less 1906 17 Years Old In 1906, he danced in the Mariinsky production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, in a ballet sequence choreographed by Michel Fokine. … Read More He was congratulated by the director of the Imperial Ballet and offered a place in the company although he was a year from graduation. Nijinsky chose to continue his studies. He tried his hand at choreography, with a children's opera, Cinderella, with music by another student, Boris Asafyev. At Christmas, he played the King of the Mice in The Nutcracker. Read Less Show Less At his graduation performance in April 1907, he partnered Elizaveta Gerdt, in a pas de deux choreographed by Fokine. … Read More He was congratulated by prima ballerina Mathilde Kchessinska of the Imperial Ballet, who invited him to partner her.

His future career with the Imperial Ballet was guaranteed to begin at the mid-rank level of coryphÃ©e, rather than in the corps de ballet. He graduated second in his class, with top marks in dancing, art and music.<br /><br /> Nijinsky spent his summer after graduation rehearsing and then performing at Krasnoe Selo in a makeshift theatre with an audience mainly of army officers. These performances frequently included members of the Imperial family and other nobility, whose support and interest were essential to a career. Each dancer who performed before the Tsar received a gold watch inscribed with the Imperial Eagle. Buoyed by Nijinsky's salary, his new earnings from giving dance classes, and his sister Bronia's employment with the ballet company, the family moved to a larger flat on Torgovaya Ulitsa. Read Less The new season at the Mariinsky theatre began in September 1907, with Nijinsky employed as coryphÃ©e on a salary of 780 roubles per year. … Read More He appeared with Sedova, Lydia Kyasht and Karsavina.

Kchessinska partnered him in La Fille Mal GardÃ©e, where he succeeded in an atypical role for him involving humour and flirtation. Designer Alexandre Benois proposed a ballet based upon Le Pavillon d'Armide, choreographed by Fokine to music by Nikolai Tcherepnin. Nijinsky had a minor role, but it allowed him to show off his technical abilities with leaps and pirouettes. The partnership of Fokine, Benois and Nijinsky was repeated throughout his career. Shortly after, he upstaged his own performance, appearing in the Bluebird pas de deux from the Sleeping Beauty, partnering Lydia Kyasht. The Mariinsky audience was deeply familiar with the piece, but exploded with enthusiasm for his performance and his appearing to fly, an effect he continued to have on audiences with the piece during his career. In subsequent years, Nijinsky was given several soloist roles. Read Less TWENTIES 1909 20 Years Old … During the winter of 1908/9, Diaghilev started planning for the 1909 Paris tour of opera and ballet.

He collected a team including designers Alexandre Benois and LÃ©on Bakst, painters Nicholas Roerich and Konstantin Korovin, composers Alexander Glazunov and Nikolai Tcherepnin, regisseurs Vsevolod Meyerhold and Alexander Sanine and other ballet enthusiasts. As a friend and as a leading dancer, Nijinsky was part of the group. His sister wrote that he felt intimidated by the illustrious and aristocratic company. Fokine was asked to start rehearsals for the existing Le Pavillon d'Armide and for Les Sylphides, an expanded version of his Chopiniana. Fokine favoured expanding the existing Une Nuit d'Egypte for a ballet. <br /><br />Diaghilev accepted the idea of an Egyptian theme, but he required a comprehensive rewrite based on new music, by which Fokine created a new ballet ClÃ©opÃ¢tre. To round out the program, they needed another ballet. Without sufficient time to compose a new work, they decided on a suite of popular dances, to be called Le Festin. Anna Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky were chosen as principal dancers.

Fokine insisted that Ida Rubenstein would appear as Cleopatra, and Nijinsky insisted that his sister should have a part. Fokine noted Nijinsky's great ability at learning a dance and precisely what a choreographer wanted. Read Less Diaghilev departed for Paris in early 1909 to make arrangements, which were immediately complicated on the day of his return, 22 February 1909, by the death of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovitch, who had sponsored an application by Diaghilev for an imperial subsidy of 100,000 roubles for the tour. … Read More Rehearsals started on 2 April at the Hermitage Theatre, which the company had been granted special permission to use, along with loans of scenery. No sooner had rehearsals started that the permission was withdrawn, disappearing as had the imperial subsidy. Diaghilev managed to raise some money in Russia, but he had to rely significantly on Gabriel Astruc, who had been arranging theatres and publicity on behalf of the company in France, to also provide finance.

Plans to include Opera had to be dropped because of the lack of finances, and logistical difficulties in obtaining necessary scenery at short notice and for free.<br /><br /> Diaghilev and Nijinsky travelled to Paris ahead of the rest of the company. Initially Nijinsky stayed at the HÃ´tel Daunou. He moved to the HÃ´tel de Hollande together with Diaghilev and his secretary, Alexis Mavrine, before the arrival of the others. Members of the company had noticed Diaghilev keeping a particularly proprietorial eye on Nijinsky during rehearsals in Russia. They took the travel arrangements and accommodation as confirmation of a relationship. Prince Lvov had visited Nijinsky's mother in St Petersburg, telling her tearfully that he would no longer be taking a special interest in her son, but he advanced a significant sum to Diaghilev towards the tour's expenses. Mavrine was known to have been Diaghilev's lover, but left the tour together with Olga Pedorova shortly after it had begun. Read Less Show Less In 1910, Mathilde Kschessinska selected Nijinsky to dance in a revival of Petipa's Le Talisman.

… Read More Nijinsky created a sensation in the role of the Wind God Vayou.<br /><br /> A turning point for Nijinsky was his meeting the Russian Sergei Diaghilev, a celebrated and highly innovative producer of ballet and opera, as well as art exhibitions. He concentrated on promoting Russian visual and musical art abroad, particularly in Paris. The 1908 season of colorful Russian ballets and operas, works mostly new to the West, was a great success, leading him to plan a new tour for 1909 with a new name for his company, the now famous Ballets Russes. He worked closely with choreographer Michel Fokine and artist LÃ©on Bakst, and later with other contemporary artists and composers. Nijinsky and Diaghilev became lovers for a time, and Diaghilev was deeply involved in directing and managing Nijinsky's career. Read Less In 1910, he performed in Giselle, and Fokine's ballets Carnaval and Scheherazade (based on the orchestral suite by Rimsky-Korsakov).

… Read More His portrayal of "Petrushka," the puppet with a soul, was a remarkable display of his expressive ability to portray characters. His partnership with Tamara Karsavina, also of the Mariinsky Theatre, was legendary, and they have been called the "most exemplary artists of the time".<br /><br /> Nijinsky took the creative reins and choreographed ballets which pushed boundaries and stirred controversy. His ballets were L'aprÃ¨s-midi d'un faune (The Afternoon of a Faun, based on Claude Debussy's PrÃ©lude Ã l'aprÃ¨s-midi d'un faune) (1912); Jeux (1913); and Till Eulenspiegel (1916). These introduced his audiences to the new direction of modern dance. As the title character in L'aprÃ¨s-midi d'un faune, in the final tableau, he mimed masturbation with the scarf of a nymph, causing a scandal; he was defended by such artists as Auguste Rodin, Odilon Redon and Marcel Proust.

Nijinsky's new trends in dance caused a riotous reaction at the ThÃ©Ã¢tre de Champs-ÃlysÃ©es when they premiered in Paris. Read Less Show Less The tour party included Romola de Pulszky, whose father Count Charles Pulszky was a Hungarian politician, and mother Emilia MÃ¡rkus was a noted actress. In March 1912 the recently engaged Romola was taken to see the Ballets Russes in Budapest by her prospective mother-in-law and was greatly impressed. … Read More Nijinsky had not been performing, but she returned the following day and saw him: "An electric shock passed through the entire audience. Intoxicated, entranced, gasping for breath, we followed this superhuman being... the power, the featherweight lightness, the steel-like strength, the suppleness of his movements. Romola broke off her engagement and began following the Ballets Russes across Europe, attending every performance she could. Nijinsky was difficult to approach, being always accompanied by a 'minder'. However, Romola befriended Adolf Bolm, who had previously visited her mother, thereby gaining access to the company and backstage.

She and Nijinsky shared no common language; she spoke French but he knew only a little, so many of their early conversations involved an interpreter. When first introduced to her, he gained the impression she was a Hungarian prima ballerina and was friendly. Discovering his mistake, he ignored her thereafter. Read Less … Nijinsky's work in choreographing ballets had proved controversial. They were time-consuming to rehearse and badly received by critics. Diaghilev asked him to begin preparing a new ballet, La LÃ©gende de Joseph, based on the Bible. Aside from Nijinsky's difficulties, Diaghilev came under pressure from financial backers and theatre owners who wanted productions more in the style of previous successful work. Although Diaghilev had become unhappy with Fokine's work, thinking he had lost his originality, he returned to him for two new ballets, including Joseph. Relations between Diaghilev and Nijinsky had deteriorated under the stress of Nijinsky's becoming principal choreographer and his pivotal role in the company's financial success.

Diaghilev could not face Nijinsky to tell him personally that he would no longer be choreographing the ballet Joseph, but instead asked his sister Bronia Nijinska to deliver the bad news. <br /><br />The company was to embark on a tour of South America in August 1913. Read Less Nijinska, who had always worked closely with her brother and supported him, could not accompany the tour because she had married in July 1912 and become pregnant. … Read More In October 1912 their father had died while on tour with his dance company, causing another stress for the siblings. Diaghilev did not accompany the South American tour, claiming he had been told that he would die on the ocean. Others have suggested the reason had more to do with wanting to spend time away from Nijinsky and enjoy a holiday in Venice, "where perhaps adventures with pretty dark-eyed boys awaited him". Nijinsky set sail on a 21-day sea voyage in a state of turmoil and without the people who had been his closest advisers in recent years.

Read Less Show Less In 1913 Nijinsky married Hungarian Romola de Pulszky while on tour with the company in South America. … Read More She had 'stalked' the company and Nijinsky since 1912. The marriage caused a break with Diaghilev, who soon dismissed Nijinsky from the company. The couple had two daughters together, Kyra and Tamara Nijinska.<br /><br /> With no alternative employer available, Nijinsky tried to form his own company, but this was not a success. He was interned in Budapest, Hungary during World War I, under house arrest until 1916. He was finally permitted to leave after intervention by Diaghilev and international leaders; he was allowed to go to New York for an American tour. Calls for his release had been made by Alfonso XIII of Spain and President Wilson at the urging of Otto Kahn.<br /><br /> Nijinsky became increasingly mentally unstable with the stresses of having to manage tours himself and deprived of opportunities to dance, which had always been his total obsession.

After a tour of South America in 1917, and due to travel difficulties imposed by the war, the family settled in St. Moritz, Switzerland. His mental condition deteriorated; he was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1919 and committed to an asylum for the first time. For the next 30 years, he was in and out of institutions, never dancing again in public. Read Less … On board ship, Romola had a cabin in first class, which allowed her to keep a watch on Nijinsky's door, while most of the company were exiled to second class. She befriended his masseur and was rewarded with a rundown on his musculature. Determined to take every opportunity, she succeeded in spending more and more time in his company. The unexpected friendliness was noticed by Baron de Gunsbourg, an investor in the Ballets Russes, who had been tasked with keeping an eye on the company. Instead of reporting to Diaghilev on what was occurring, Gunsbourg agreed to act on Nijinsky's behalf in presenting a proposal of marriage to Romola. Romola thought a cruel joke was being played on her, and ran off to her cabin crying.

However, Nijinsky asked her again, in broken French and mime, and she accepted. Although Gunsbourg had a financial interest in Ballets Russes, he was also interested in forming his own company, and a split between Diaghilev and his star dancer might have presented him with an opportunity. <br /><br />When the ship stopped at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the couple went straight to buy wedding rings. Adolph Bolm warned Romola against proceeding, saying "It will ruin your life". Gunsbourg hurried to arrange the marriage, getting permission by telegram from Romola's mother. Read Less A quick wedding could take place once the ship arrived at Buenos Aires, Argentina; the couple were married on 10 September 1913 and the event was announced to the world's press. … Read More Back in Europe, Diaghilev "gave himself to a wild orgy of dissipation Sobbing shamelessly in Russian despair, he bellowed accusations and recriminations; he cursed Nijinsky's ingratitude, Romola's treachery, and his own stupidity".<br /><br /> As the company was due to start performing immediately, the couple had no honeymoon.

A few days after the marriage, Nijinsky tried to teach Romola some ballet, but she was not interested. "I asked her to learn dancing because for me dancing was the highest thing in the world", "I realized that I had made a mistake, but the mistake was irreparable. I had put myself in the hands of someone who did not love me." Romola and Nijinsky did not share accommodations until after the season was safely underway, when she was eventually invited to join him in separate bedrooms in his hotel suite. She "almost cried with thankfulness" that he showed no interest in making love on their wedding night. Read Less THIRTIES 1919 30 Years Old Nijinsky's diary, which he wrote from January to early March 1919, expressed his great fear of hospitalization and confinement. … Read More He filled it with drawings of eyes, as he felt himself under scrutiny, by his wife, a young doctor Frenkel, and others. Finally Romola arranged a consultation in Zurich with the psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler in 1919, asking her mother and stepfather for help in getting Nijinsky there.

His fears were realized; he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to BurghÃ¶lzli. After a few days, he was transferred to the Bellevue Sanatorium, "a luxurious and humane establishment directed at that time by Ludwig Binswanger." Read Less 1920 31 Years Old In 1920, Nijinsky's second daughter Tamara was born. … Read More She never saw him dance in public.<br /><br /> For the next 30 years, Nijinsky was in and out of psychiatric hospitals and asylums. Read Less FIFTIES 1945 56 Years Old During 1945 after the end of the war, after Romola had moved with him to Vienna, he encountered a group of Russian soldiers in an encampment, playing traditional folk tunes on a balalaika and other instruments. … Read More Inspired by the music and hearing his first language, he started dancing, astounding the men with his skills. Drinking and laughing with them helped him start to speak again. He had maintained long periods of almost absolute silence during his years of illness.

His wife Romola had protected them by staying for a time at the border of Hungary and Austria, trying to keep out of major areas of fighting. Read Less 1947 58 Years Old From 1947 Nijinsky lived in Surrey, England with his wife. LATE ADULTHOOD 1950 61 Years Old He died from kidney failure at a clinic in London on 8 April 1950 and was buried in London. … Read More In 1953 his body was moved to Montmartre Cemetery in Paris and reinterred beside the graves of GaÃ©tan Vestris, ThÃ©ophile Gautier, and Emma Livry.<br /><br /> Nijinsky's daughter Kyra married the Ukrainian conductor Igor Markevitch, and they had a son named Vaslav. The marriage ended in divorce.<br /><br /> His second daughter Tamara Nijinsky grew up with her maternal grandmother, never getting to see her father dance.

Later she has served as Executive Director of the Vaslav & Romola Nijinsky Foundation, founded by her mother, to preserve art and writing associated with her parents, and her father's dances.<br /><br /> Nijinsky's Diary was written during the six weeks in 1919 he spent in Switzerland before being committed to the asylum to Zurich. It reflected the decline of his household into chaos. He elevated feeling and action in his writing. It combined elements of autobiography with appeals for compassion toward the less fortunate. Discovering the three notebooks of the diary years later, plus another with letters to a variety of people, his wife published a bowdlerized version of the diary in 1936, translated into English by Jennifer Mattingly. She deleted about 40% of the diary, especially references to bodily functions, sex, and homosexuality, recasting Nijinsky as an "involuntary homosexual." She also removed some of his more unflattering references to her and others close to their household.

She moved sections around, obscuring the "march of events" obvious in the original version and toning down some of the odder portions, including trying to distinguish between sections in which he writes as God and others as himself (in the original all such sections are written the same.) Read Less Original Authors of this text are noted on . Vaslav Nijinsky - Biography - IMDb Vaslav Nijinsky Jump to: Overview (3) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (6) | Personal Quotes (2) Overview (3) Mini Bio (1) Vaslav Nijinsky was one of the most important male dancers of all time. He was born Vaslav Fomich Nijinsky on December 28, 1889, while his parents were on tour in Kiev, Russian Empire (now Kiev, Ukraine). His father, Foma (Thomas) Lavrentevich Nijinsky, and his mother, Eleonora Bereda, were of Polish-Russian heritage, they were celebrated dancers and had their own touring dance company. His father gave him his first dance lessons.

Young Nijinsky made his stage debut at the early age of 5, in 1895, at Christmas pageant show in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia. There he had several stage performances with his little sister, Bronislava Njinska alongside his father and mother. In 1900 Nijinsky was accepted at the Imperial School of Ballet in St. Petersburg on a 7-year scholarship from the State of Russia. From 1900 1907 he studied dance and music at the Imperial School of Ballet, graduating with honors as a ballet dancer. He made his professional debut on the stage of Mariinsky Theare in St. Petersburg. There his partners were none other than Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina . Nijinsky performed as the leading star of Mariinsky Ballet, as well as a guest star at Bolshoi Ballet. He appeared as Albert in 'Giselle', and as the princes in 'Swan Lake' and 'The Sleeping Beauty'. His astounding performances were marked by the height and lightness of his leaps, impressive movements, and intense charismatic personality. Nijinsky's stage presence enchanted both critics and audiences.

Nijinsky became the attraction for many important patrons, such as the Tsar Nicholas II , Grand Prince Vladimir Romanoff, and Prince Pavel Lvov. From 1907 - 1910 Nijinsky was the principal star of the Imperial Ballet at Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg. There he met impresario Sergei Diaghilev and became his protégé; Diaghilev heavily invested in development of Nijinsky's talent and ultimately made him one of the most respected dancers of all time. In 1909 Sergei Diaghilev made Nijinsky the premier dancer with Ballets Russes. Nijinsky's complex relationship with Diaghilev would have a profound effect on his professional career as well as his personal life. In May 1909, on the sponsorship from Grand Prince Vladimir Romanoff, Diaghilev took Nijinsky and Anna Pavlova on their first and highly successful tour of Ballets Russes to Paris.

During the seasons of 1909 - 1913 Nijinsky built his reputation having such great partners as Tamara Karsavina and Anna Pavlova under the leadership of Sergei Diaghilev and choreographer Mikhail Fokin . He also danced with Isadora Duncan in Paris, learning from her and absorbing from other influences and traditions. In 1913 Nijinsky made his debut as a choreographer for the Diaghilev's Ballets Russes with successful staging of ballets 'L'après-midi d'un faune' (1912, aka.. The Afternoon of a Faun), 'Jeux' (1913) on the music of Claude Debussy , and 'Le Sacre du Printemps' (1913, aka.. The Rite of Spring), for which Igor Stravinsky composed the famous score. At that time Nijinsky emerged as the most interesting and innovative male dancer who impressed audiences with his spectacular elevation in Grande Jeté, as well as his stage presence and his sensitive interpretations.

In his performance of 'L'après-midi d'un faune' Nijinsky mimed masturbation with the scarf, causing an uproar known as "the greatest scandal of the cultural world" that split audiences and became the talk of Paris and beyond. However, Nijinsky said "I don't know what happened, I had an orgasm right there on stage" describing how he got that involved in his performance. He was defended by such figures as Auguste Rodin and Marcel Proust . In 1913, while Diaghilev was away, Nijinsky was followed by a corps-de-ballet dancer Romola Pulszky, an obsessed fan, who clinged to Nijinsky and manipulated him to marry her. Being far too immature and unsophisticated, Nijinsky entered into a relationship that set him up to many failures in his life and career. He and Romola eloped in Buenos Aires. Nijinsky's unthoughtful marriage brought uncertainty in his life, causing him a cascade of many traumatic experiences, such as his split from Diaghilev and his failed performances, and eventually led to his decline.

Nijinsky followed his wife's impulse to form an independent ballet company in London, albeit their project collapsed due to the lack of leadership and administrative skills. As Nijinsky's wife ended her dancing career, she became driven by her agenda to have her own ballet company with her husband as main attraction. Her persistence only caused him more failures and further exacerbated his trauma. 1914 she had their first daughter, Kyra, and a few years later, had their second daughter, Tamara. He and Romola tried again to create their own troupe, but failed to attract enough talent and money. Being driven by Romola's demands Nijinsky ended up giving performances far below his level, often without any direction and creative plans. Her efforts aimed at his separation from his cultural roots led to his removal from the Parisian cultural milieu, and he ended up living in his wife's country, Hungary. There Nijinsky suffered from another traumatic experience. In 1916, during the First World War, Nijinsky, baptized in Poland, but still a Russian citizen, was held as a prisoner of war in Hungary.

Sergei Diaghilev helped Nijinsky again and succeeded in getting him out of his internment, then hired him for the 1916-1917 season and sent him on tour with Russian Ballet Company in Noth America. On that tour Nijinsky was given a chance to be a choreographer and dancer in the leading role as Til Eulenspiegel in the eponymous ballet, that had a premiere in New York, in 1916. However, by that time his health was already damaged and he was emotionally labile and vulnerable. His erratic behavior and his tense personal relationships with his dancing partners on that tour had manifested some signs of dementia praecox that became apparent to members of the company. Nijinsky again split from Diaghilev's Ballet, then went on a string of cabaret gigs arranged by his wife. Her domineering personality and her demands again clashed with his artistic gift causing him several failed and substandard performances, frustration and further depression. Nijinsky's performances after his split from Diaghilev were never as good as before; also upon his wife's objections, he did not have an equally prepared dancing partner.

His collaboration with his more successful sister, Bronislava Njinska , did not last, he also failed to find a good impresario, albeit that could be a hard task for anyone, except Diaghilev, during the war. In December of 1917 Nijinsky learned that his property in St. Petersburg, where he enjoyed the best years of his life, was lost because of the Russian revolution, and he suffered another emotional trauma. He retreated in a Swiss villa in St. Moritz, owned by his wife's parents, where he lived in seclusion with his domineering wife and three-year-old daughter, Kyra. At that time he expressed his longing for ballet and started writing his diaries in Russian, but his writing was interrupted when his wife reported on his "violent" behavior and placed him in an asylum. In 1919, on Romola's arrangements, Nijinsky gave his last performances for a charity at a local hotel in St. Moritz, and at the same time he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and undergone a psychiatric treatment in Switzerland, being accompanied by his wife.

For the rest of his life Nijinsky suffered from unstable emotions and mental problems; he spent many years in and out of mental hospitals. Although his wife was taking care of him in her own manner, which was described by witnesses as manipulative, Nijinsky wrote about his marriage "My wife is an untwinkling star..." Her own denial and insecurities of a failed actress led to a never-ending chain of conflicts with her famous husband. While she reported on his periods of anger, Romola clinged to Nijinsky against all advice to get a divorce, thus provoking anger again and again, and turning their irreconcilable differences into a vicious cycle, while maintaining the image of a victimized but devoted and caring wife of an ailing star. At the same time Nijinsky, having expressed himself in writing of four volumes of his diaries, also made numerous drawings of dancing figures. He developed his original system of dance notation, but never danced for another 30 years. His handwritten diaries suffered from heavy editing by his wife, who cut the original drastically before the first publication in 1936, and the fourth book was never published. The original preface by Dr.

Alfred Adler described his establishment of cooperative therapeutic relationship and the instilling of hope as central factor for successful treatment, but that original preface was not published and was not shown to Nijinsky. It was replaced by Romola with her version of Nijinsky's life. Romola, who was a homophobic, portrayed Nijinsky as a passive victim of Diaghilev's abuse, and described herself as a savior who changed his life. Meanwhile, Nijinsky was treated by the best doctors of his time, such as Sigmund Freud , Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler. In 1945, when Nijinsky was living in Hungary, he met some Russians and spoke to them in his native language, one day he joined Russian dancers as they performed on a street, and danced with them, showing happiness, but soon he had to move with his wife to another country. Nijinsky's medical records showed some improvement of his mental status before he died of kidney disease, at age 60, on April 8, 1950.

He was buried in London, until 1953, when Serge Lifar , in a bitter dispute with Romola, refused to accede to Romola's wish and moved his body to Cimetière de Montmartre in Paris, next to the graves of Gaetano Vestris and Theophile Gotier. Romola died of cancer in 1978, but Nijinsky's side refused to bury her together with him. In 2005, after a long legal battle, Nijinsky's sepulcher was opened on permission granted by Lifar's widow, so that Romola was re-buried next to Nijinsky, but her name was not on his tombstone. Pablo Picasso , Amedeo Modigliani, Jean Cocteau , and Auguste Rodin made portraits of Vaslav Nijinsky during the peak of his career.

A comprehensive biography of Vaslav Nijinsky, titled 'A leap into madness', was written by Peter Oswald, professor of psychiatry at the UCSF in California, with many documents related to Nijinsky's brilliant career, his disastrous marriage as well as his medical records and observations by foremost doctors such as Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler. Nijinsky's original hand-written manuscript was written mainly in Russian and partially in French as a stream-of-consciousness narration about his traumatic experiences and hectic relationships between him, Diaghilev, and Romola. The diary remained a closely guarded secret until Romola's death, and was sold at an auction in 1979, for over $100,000, and finally, in 1994, it was acquired by the New York Public Library. It was published in 1999, after Nijinsky's daughters relented as holders of the copyright. Nijinsky's system of dance notation was deciphered in the 1980's.

Nijinsky's tombstone in Monmartre Cemetery in Paris has inscription SEPULTURE NIJINSKY VASLAV NIJINSKY NE A KIEV 28 XII 1889 MORT A Londres 8 IV 1950 - IMDb Mini Biography By: Steve Shelokhonov Spouse (1) (1913 - 8 April 1950) (his death) (2 children) Trivia (6) Stravinsky and Nijinsky's worst ballet. They choreographed the worst opening night ever | Daily Mail Online comments The fight of Spring: A riot, a ballet without a tune and bankruptcy.

100 years on, why Stravinsky's opening night ballet was a disaster The Fight of Spring: The score was so unlike anything heard before that, at rehearsals, the musicians wondered if there had been a printing mistake PARIS 1913 Looking nervously through the peephole in the curtain of the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the young choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky could see a murmuring ocean of bejewelled ladies, and their escorts in white tie and tails, waiting for his ballet to begin. It was the French capital, on May 29, 1913, and the audience’s mood was one of excited expectation. They were about to witness one of the most hotly anticipated cultural events in history; the first performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre Du Printemps (The Rite Of Spring), designed by Nicholas Roerich, choreographed by Nijinsky and produced by Sergei Diaghilev. The people packed into the sweltering theatre represented ‘the thousand varieties of snobbism, super-snobbism, (and) anti-snobbism’.

First there were the grandes dames of French society, diamonds blazing on their powdered bosoms. These powerful women were life models for Marcel Proust, the reclusive novelist whose ground-breaking À La Recherche Du Temps Perdu, the first section of which was published in 1913, chronicled this tiny group of aristocrats and their hangers-on. Although they could be generous patrons, their kindness came at a price – they expected their world view to be reflected in the work they supported. While the grandees in their red velvet boxes had paid double the usual ticket price, Diaghilev – the charismatic impresario of the Ballets Russes, the company that had bewitched Paris four years earlier – had also given out free passes to a group of rebellious intellectuals. The young men wore soft collars and short jackets, and the women were in turbans and bright, loose dresses. Sergei Diaghilev, left, with Igor Stravinsky Even if they could have afforded better clothes they would have refused to wear them, as a demonstration of their rejection of outdated traditions.

Torn between his devotion to art as an ideal and his need for a hit, and devastated by the private knowledge that Nijinsky, his acknowledged lover for the past four years, was moving away from him, Diaghilev was desperate for Sacre to succeed. He had opened the programme with Les Sylphides, his favourite piece and one of the Ballets Russes’ most popular shows. The lonely poet dancing with ghostly maidens in long white tutus was romantic and heart-stoppingly beautiful; for most of the audience, exactly what they expected. Others, though, had begun to hope that ballet, like literature and the visual arts, might begin to form a new, truer idea of beauty. Even though the first strains of Sacre are hauntingly delicate, the unusually high register used by Stravinsky for the opening bassoon solo caused a commotion. The ballet was 24-year-old Vaslav Nijinsky's first major composition The composer Camille Saint-Saëns hissed to his neighbour: ‘If that’s a bassoon, I’m a baboon.’ Whistles, boos and laughter broke out.

The score was so unlike anything heard before that, at rehearsals, the musicians wondered if there had been a printing mistake. Stravinsky would shout: ‘Gentlemen, you do not have to laugh, I know what I wrote!’ and would race to the piano to pound out the music as he wanted it played. The sweating dancers waited in their heavy costumes to begin the performance, an imagined enactment of the fertility ritual of an ancient Slavonic tribe. The ballet was 24-year-old Nijinsky’s first major composition. Despite his universally acknowledged genius as a dancer (since his Parisian debut in 1909, aged 20, he had been acclaimed Le Dieu De La Danse) his talents as a choreographer aroused debate. Some found his two previous ballets – L’Après-Midi D’un Faune (1912) and Jeux, which had premiered only weeks earlier – thrillingly new, but many dismissed them as ugly, even obscene. As the music swelled into a frenzy of dissonance, the dancers began moving, but what the audience saw bore almost no relation to the grace of Les Sylphides.

The dancers’ steps were heavy, as Nijinsky imagined the movements of ancient tribespeople. For much of the performance they faced away from the audience and there was no storyline to follow. This was, as one critic later wrote, ‘not the usual spring sung by poets . . . [but] spring seen from inside, with its violence, its spasms and its fissions’. The audience erupted – with some shouting in rage at having been mocked and insulted, as they saw it, by this ‘non-ballet’ and others defending it, understanding that what they were seeing and hearing was as revolutionary as the writings of Nietzsche and Freud, the discoveries of Einstein, the paintings of Cézanne and Picasso. As one said, they were witnessing ‘an utterly new vision, something never before seen . . . art and anti-art at once’. However, the arguments quickly descended into the visceral. Members of rival factions were observed rapping one another on the head with their canes; one tugged another’s top hat down over his face.

One of the young bohemians, a critic, cried out: ‘Down with the whores of the Sixteenth (arrondissement; Paris’s Mayfair)!’ HIGH JINKS: The Finnish National Ballet performing a reconstruction of Nijinsky's The Rite Of Spring Gabriel Astruc, the theatre’s owner and a long-term supporter of the Ballets Russes, leaned out of his box and screamed: ‘First listen! Then hiss!’ Nijinsky’s mother fainted. Some people remembered seeing policemen arriving to break up fights. The premiere would pass into legend as one of the great moments of cultural history, but for each of the protagonists it was a personal turning point, too. Although some critics hailed Le Sacre Du Printemps as a masterpiece it was a commercial failure. Nijinsky’s choreography was dismissed and all but forgotten until the first revival of his work more than 70 years later. Stravinsky and Nijinsky would never work together again. Astruc was forced to close the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées because Sacre had bankrupted him.

Diaghilev was on the verge of sacking Nijinsky when the choreographer eloped with a female follower of the Ballets Russes. After the performance, Diaghilev, Nijinsky and Stravinsky drove around the empty city. The evening ended with Diaghilev reciting Pushkin in the Bois de Boulogne, the tears on his face lit up in the carriage lamps, while Stravinsky and Nijinsky listened intently. They were, said Stravinsky, ‘excited, angry, disgusted and . . . happy’, convinced that it would take people years to understand what they had been shown. Even so, they could scarcely have imagined that Nijinsky’s choreography would never be danced again after its nine performances in 1913 but would resonate throughout the century to come, while Stravinsky’s score would go on to be acclaimed the soundtrack of the 20th century. ‘Nijinsky’ by Lucy Moore is published by Profile, priced £25. To order your copy at £18 with free p&p, please call the Mail Book Shop on 0844 472 4157 or visit mailbookshop.co.uk.

THE LORD OF MODERN DANCE Nijinsky – the journey from genius to tortured madman Nijinsky’s parents were Polish itinerant dancers who often performed in the large theatre-circuses, such as Salamonsky’s, which were hugely popular attractions throughout the Russian empire. His first paid role, aged seven, was as a chimney sweep. Almost immediately after graduating from the Imperial Theatre School, Nijinsky attracted the attention of a rich patron, Prince Lvov, who seduced him by pretending that a princess who was in love with Nijinsky had asked him to act as her go-between. Lvov introduced Nijinsky to Diaghilev and encouraged their romance, well aware of how instrumental Diaghilev could be in promoting Nijinsky’s career. It was only dancer Anna Pavlova’s last-minute absence from the Ballets Russes’ opening two weeks in Paris in 1909 that allowed Diaghilev to present Nijinsky as his star. In 1913, soon after the debacle in Paris, Nijinsky met a star-struck Hungarian socialite Romola de Pulszky on a month-long voyage to South America – and they married.

When he discovered Nijinsky had eloped, Diaghilev consoled himself with a debauched tour through Southern Italy before his thoughts turned to revenge. Nijinsky’s first mental breakdown probably took place in 1914, soon after Diaghilev sacked him. He put on a programme at a London music hall, but it was a disaster. Nijinsky was so hysterical that, on one occasion, the stage manager had to pour a jug of water over him. As Nijinsky’s mental health declined in the mid-1910s his behaviour became increasingly erratic. Influenced by the writings of Tolstoy, he began wearing hair shirts next to his skin and refusing to eat meat. By 1919 Nijinksy was experiencing periods of lucidity and terrifying moments of hallucination and mania. Nijinksy, Romola and their daughter, Kyra, were living quietly in St Moritz and he took to driving their sleigh into the paths of oncoming sleighs. He pushed Romola down the stairs and spent hundreds of francs on sweaters in a rainbow of colours.

According to the frenzied diary he began on the day of his last public performance, Nijinsky believed that he was entering into a marriage with God. When Romola took him to a psychiatrist to be diagnosed, he was told by the doctor that he was incurably insane. His daughter, Tamara, aged 17, seeing Nijinsky after many years’ absence in 1937, was alone with him for a moment. She picked him a bunch of flowers, and recalled: ‘Silently, he gazed at the daisies, lifted them upward to the sky . . . like an offering, then sank back in his chair, shut his eyes, and pressed the flowers to his heart.’ Nijinsky died in a London clinic in 1950.

Question: In which year did the great Russian ballet dancer and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky die?
Answer: 1950